


burn and bury

by stellulam



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:37:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9711428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellulam/pseuds/stellulam
Summary: She needs her answers and her vengeance sated so she can move on with her life. The only thing that tugs her attention away from her goal comes in sandy gold armour. Carolina may be running her equipment so her own shows a dark grey, but his stands out. It's York. Of course it's York. (or, "Carolina finds York before Tex can; Feelings ensue.")





	

The city is just out of the way enough that she's far from the only person there in armour. Those that aren't look as though they'd rather the ex-soldiers and mercenaries and pirates and militia weren't in armour either, but with the sort of disagreement that said they weren't going to pick a fight about it. That comes in handy, when Carolina doesn't have a pair of personal clothes to change into and has no desire to, either. The suits were designed to live in, so let her live in hers. 

She's only here to see what she can learn, anyway, not to socialize. If she can pick up mercenary work to supplement the still-working (so Project Freelancer must know she's still alive, she knows) bank account she'd emptied, even better. Her plans are still in the making, but she has ideas. Before any of those can bear fruit, there are a thousand small steps: she needs military intel, old Project intel, weapons, supplies, a way to find the Director and make him answer to her. She needs her answers and her vengeance sated so she can move on with her life. 

The only thing that tugs her attention away from her goal comes in sandy gold armour. Carolina may be running her equipment so her own shows a dark grey, but his stands out. _It's York_ , her gut tells her.

So she follows him, working herself up with every emotion under this sun or any other, keeping to shadows and letting her camouflage do most of the work while she focuses on keeping her feet silent. Once they hit the abandoned corner of town, a green avatar flickers into being near the shoulder plate of the man she's tailing. Delta comments on the soldier's exhaustion and gets a dismissive, trying too hard to be funny response. 

It's York. 

Of course it's York. 

Furious and hurt and relieved, Carolina follows them until they disappear into a building and she talks herself into going back to the room she's rented across town. Waiting outside wherever he's living just to follow him from the shadows again isn't going to do her any good, isn't going to do _anything_ but risk her getting caught. Instead, she waits until the next day to track him down again, because she can't get him out of her head. She doesn't know what she's going to say when she sees him - it might just be a hard punch to the face, honestly - but it winds up not mattering, because she doesn't have the guts to show herself. 

_Fearless Carolina_ , the boss, the best, is too scared to talk to the turncoat she used to love. She can add being disgusted with herself to the list of feelings she doesn't want to sort through right now. 

She keeps tabs on him for another week, until she knows his schedule with some degree of confidence. She watches him across the city's most popular bar, out of armour and fiddling with his lighter. She watches as he breaks into an overpriced chain store and nearly gets caught by security, when she intervenes and leaves an unconscious guard for him to step over on his way out. She hasn't given him a present in a long time, after all.

—

Carolina finally buys herself civilian clothing: a pair of jeans, a white tanktop, boots, a jacket in her trademark cyan. She tries to do something with her hair for the first time in nearly a year, her roots the awkward, pale copper colour she started covering as a teenager, the once-vivid red dye faded at the ends. She goes out practically naked, her armour locked up in her room. 

Somehow, despite what at one time had seemed like radar specifically for finding her in a crowd, York doesn't notice her at the bar. In fact, his eyes pass right over her as they sweep the room, as easily as if she wasn't there. On one hand, it's a good thing that she doesn't stick out. On the other, York always acted like she stuck out to him, like she mattered, like he loved her, like he trusted her. It's not like any of that matters now, of course, with the Project in ruins because of what he and Tex _did_ , with the patronizing tone he'd used on the _Mother of Invention_ , so long ago. _We can get you help_ , he'd said, as if there was something wrong with her. 

What a bastard. 

She sips a beer and fantasizes about beating the crap out of him until she resolves to go speak to him, to use her words. He has the lighter out, his drink half-gone. He doesn't notice or doesn't care when she stands behind him, doesn't react at all until she's reaching over his shoulder to pluck the lighter from his fingertips. 

"Okay, buddy-" He turns, grabs for her wrist, freezes when he sees more than just her hand. 

"Do you ever stop with this damn thing?" Carolina asks, words that are meant to be playful teasing, except for the fact that it isn't playful at all. Everything about her right now is frigid and malicious, thick layers of frost over the twisted knot of betrayal and grief at her core. 

She doesn't let him keep her wrist, yanking her hand back. He doesn't fight it. 

"You…" York starts, visibly unable to find words for the first time in memory. "I mean, I figured if I did that enough, you'd show up eventually to stop me. And it worked, didn't it?"

Her fingers curl tight around his lighter and she pulls her elbow back, far enough she'll have momentum for a good punch with that fist. Carolina pauses there, muscles tense, the sleeves of her jacket just a little too tight, now that she's flexing in them. York's brows furrow, but he makes no move to defend himself. _Shit_. Of course he wouldn't. 

_You can trust me_. Pleading and honest, as if that would make up for leaving her with the tangled mess of AIs in her head, leaving her side for Tex's, only to come back and bring what little semblance of a decent life she's ever had crashing down around her. 

This isn't the place to punch him. So she doesn't, just replies, "I can't be the only one it drives crazy."

"Probably not," York admits, with a shrug that should be easy, except for the layer of uncertain tension. He's trying to play it off, though, because it's York. "But the ladies say facial scars make a guy look intimidating. Maybe that scares everyone else off."

Scars or not, there's something inherently charming about York's face. Carolina thought that years ago and she still thinks that now. Not that she's going to say so. 

"Or you just look like a lost cause."

"That wouldn't be so far off, would it?" She's not sure if it's a joke or not, with that weird grey area of not-funny Freelancer humour so many of them had embraced. When she doesn't immediately answer, York uses his foot to push out the stool beside him, scraping it across the floor with a sound that makes her clench her jaw. "Sit with me a while?"

"Just while you finish your drink," Carolina says, careful not to touch York as she sits. No hand on his shoulder, no casually bumping knees. Not when she's still thinking about hitting him. 

She tucks his lighter into her jacket pocket for something to do with her hands. 

"Are we going somewhere?" 

"I want to talk to you in private."

"It's probably loud enough here," York suggests, drink in hand again now, but his eyes still on her. She doesn't answer with more than a glare. He drops it, comments on the bar's music choice instead while he takes his time with his drink. Carries on the conversation by himself, because that's always been something he just _does_. 

Eventually he finishes, thank god, and they leave. There's no discussion of where to go, York knowing better than to ask. But he doesn't seem to know better than his comment while they wait for the light to change at an intersection, waiting not to jaywalk as if they were actually decent, law-abiding people: "I missed you, you know."

Carolina doesn't think about how she responds to that, just lets instinct take over. And instinct here is violence, a three point takedown- left punch to his side, right to his jaw, right leg hard behind his knee and sweeping his legs out from under him. York goes down hard, sprawled on his back, hitting his head. She doesn't feel bad about that. 

"Maybe you should have thought about missing me before you decided you were against me," she snarls down at him. "You don't get to _miss me_."

It takes him a second to blink himself into focus, then sit up. But she's crowding him still and he makes no move to get to his feet. 

"Was this your big plan? Just get me out of the bar so you could kick my ass?"

"No. I need to speak to Delta."

"Don't have him," York lies, not missing a beat. 

"You're not in a great position to be lying to me right now, York."

Using his name seems to change something. makes his shoulders slump a little, wipes the last of the cockiness from his face. She's never seen him look so tired before. "Yeah, alright," he says. "Let's just get off the street."

She doesn't help him up and he doesn't make any more smart comments as they go back to what passes for his apartment, that one building Carolina has been watching him move in and out of for days now. It's sparse living conditions - basic necessities and a crate with an impressive looking lock interface that she imagines houses his armour and weapons. A mattress on the floor counts for a bedroom. Ironically, it's still more space than any of them ever had to themselves back on the _Mother of Invention_. 

"Hey D, the boss wants to talk to you," York says, a sigh in his voice even if it doesn't actually come out. "Better get out here."

The green avatar wastes no time in showing himself to Carolina, appearing midway between the two of them. 

"Agent Carolina. I would say that you have been missed, but it seems unlikely you wish to hear that," Delta says, tone as even and almost droning as ever. "So I will instead say that is good to see you alive and well."

Carolina ignores the pleasantries, wouldn't even know how to respond to them if she didn't, and instead pushes ahead with her objective. "I've got questions for you. And every time you try to dodge them or give me some vague bullshit instead of a real answer, I'm going to hit York. Understood?"

"Violence hardly seems nec-"

" _Understood_ , Delta?"

"Understood, Agent Carolina."

York mutters a "Thanks, D," off to the side, wandering over to what passes for a kitchen space to give them some privacy. He'll be listening anyway, but Carolina ignores that. 

"All AI - _full_ AI - are copies of someone's brain, right? Including their memories."

"That is correct," Delta answers, even if Carolina doesn't really need him to. That much is common knowledge, AI basics. And she listened in on more than enough of her father's conversations growing up to have a good grasp of the basics. 

"Then who were you a copy of?"

"The individual fragments were not copies of anyone."

"You know what I mean," Carolina growls. "Was it Leonard Church?"

Delta's response is delayed as some sort of avoidance tactic until she takes a step in York's direction and the fragment says, "Yes."

"That's what I thought." She just needed to hear it, needed Delta's too-easily-smug voice telling her that she was right. "Now tell me what you know about Agent Texas."

"What is it that you wish to know?"

"Where did she come from? You showed up after her, so I figure you'd know."

"Freelancer recruitment information is-"

"She wasn't _recruited_ , Delta," she interjects before Delta can finish some canned answer the Counselor would be proud of. He's just another part of Project Freelancer than Carolina is glad never to have to see again. She didn't like him when they first met, when he suggested taking her name from her, when the Director decided that was for the best. And she never did warm up to him. 

There's a beat and then, "No. She was not recruited."

Carolina keeps up her questions for the rest of the night, eventually starting to pace, restless, as she rewords questions so Delta will answer them completely instead of half in riddles. But he's the Director's logic, she knows for certain now, so that makes a lot of sense, infuriating though it may be. It's slow going, but eventually she has enough answers to knot her stomach and give her a goal that keeps flickering back into her mind every time she stops thinking. She wants the Director to pay. She wants him dead. 

When she stops pacing too long, standing with her arms crossed and one thumb between her teeth and her eyes glaring a hole in York's wall, he comes over to put a hand on her shoulder. For a full four seconds, she welcomes it, relishes in the familiarity of his casual touches, prepares to give in when he inevitably tries to talk her into a back massage, because she's all wound up or whatever his excuse for touching her is. But then the moment is gone and she shrugs away from his grip, hand coming up to swat his arm away before he can stop her, and says, "I should go."

She means to leave it at that, honestly. York is doing just fine on his own and Carolina wants to burn and bury everything related to the Project outside of her armour and her new name, so sticking with him would be pointless. But when he catches her making arrangements to leave the city, she doesn't tell him where she was planning to go, why she was planning to go there, can't find the words to tell him to screw off and never bother to think of her again. 

"So if you're not busy, I was thinkin' we'd make a pretty good team getting past this place's security," York says, trying to talk her into his life of crime. 

"You just need someone to take out the guards," Carolina accuses, only to sigh and acquiesce when his silence gives her an answer. At least she's good for something, at least York still knows that. 

It surprises her when they still work perfectly in sync, complementing one another effortlessly, but she doesn't know why.

—

"I'm going to find the Director and kill him," Carolina says in the middle of the night a few days later, sitting beside York's bed in full armour. He's not actually asleep, she knows: he just gave up on trying to get her to lay down with him. 

"What? Why?"

"Because it's what he deserves and after all the bullshit he put me through, I think I deserve to be the one to do it." She explains it the way she's been practicing in her head, as if York doesn't know exactly what she sounds like reciting something off by memory. 

He's quiet a moment, then rolls onto his back to look up at her, expression somber in the moonlight. "Okay," he says, "But how are you going to find him?"

"I don't know yet."

—

It's better to leave the city, after a while. There's only so much to learn here and Carolina is anxious to get moving. So she presses York's lighter back into his hand and tries to leave and can't find it in her to fight him when he says, "Delta and I could use a roadtrip, actually."

So they roadtrip, planethopping where they have to. They follow intel trails and their hunches and suggestions from Delta for months. York talks a lot and when the weather is warm one day he takes off a glove to lace his fingers with Carolina's while they walk - it's so much easier with only one layer of suit and plating in the way. He tells her about sunsets on a boardwalk as a kid and she wonders why she doesn't tug her hand out of his, when she isn't ready to forgive him yet. The answer eludes her and eventually he makes her chuckle at one of his stories; he wins. 

Even York knows it's not practical to hold hands over long distances, so he doesn't try. But he does take it as permission to touch her more. Nothing obnoxious or inappropriate, just what would have passed for normal in Project Freelancer's heyday. He knocks his elbow against her armour when he wants her attention somewhere, puts his hand on her shoulder when she gets too worked up. She leans in close to him while they discuss something, Delta projecting off the side, and York bumps the forehead of his helmet against hers. 

And just like that, he has her heart caught in his orbit again, but she says even less about it than she did before and that was never much at all.

A week later, eavesdropping on PFL communications gets them news of a former Freelancer breaking into their bases and wrecking havoc. Two weeks after that, Delta interrupts a ration-pack dinner during a sunset to inform them that North is dead. The sunset is suddenly much less pretty than it was.

—

More travelling and dead ends and Carolina destroying a facility that probably doesn't need to be destroyed because she's so goddamn frustrated later, York calls for a break. Delta has something to decrypt for a while. York wants a shower. Carolina yells at both of them and loses to democracy and the concession that York's mood could use the break. 

So he can have the motel room shower first while Carolina strips down and checks her armour for anything that needs to be patched up, scrubbing away dirt that might interfere with anything important, Delta chattering away beside her. The fragment's finally starting to grow on her, but she's not sure if that's a good thing or not, all things considered. 

She doesn't look up when she hears the shower shut off and the bathroom door open a moment later, which apparently isn't what York wants, because he pointedly clears her throat until she looks up. When she does, he's posing for her, hands on his hips, the towel slung low around them and tucked in in such a way that she doesn't entirely trust it to stay up if he moves. Which is exactly the point, if she knows him at all. 

"No," she says, not interested in letting her gaze linger when her armour needs attention. 

"What?" York asks, in that way he has of pretending to be innocent when he knows full well that he isn't. She hasn't heard it in a while, but it sounds like _him_ in a healthy way, so she doesn't mind. "I was just wondering what you and D were up to."

"Equipment maintenance. I suggest you do the same." 

"Hey, my suit's hung up to dry."

"Good." She finishes the piece she's working on and sets it aside with a thump, picking up her cloth and bottle of cleaner to press into York's chest as she passes on her way to the bathroom. It's not in her nature to admit it, but the shower is more goddamn welcome than she could possibly articulate. Just because the power armour's meant to live in doesn't mean it's nice to and every break to get out of it and remember that she has skin that isn't her undersuit and a range of mobility that isn't hampered by plating. She spends nearly twenty minutes using up the hot water, washes her hair twice. 

And when she's done, her freshly washed undersuit is already dry, so she puts her second skin back on and walks out to the main room toweling her hair off. 

York looks disappointed. 

"Never would've thought you were blonde, you know," he comments on, instead of her state of dress. A sleazy comment would've almost been more comfortable. 

Carolina sighs, moving to sit cross-legged on the bed closer to the window. That one's hers, in case something goes wrong. Her reaction times are better than his. 

"It's not really blonde."

"Reddish-blonde?"

"It's red. Just… lightish red." And time-consuming to run a comb through, at the moment, taking most of Carolina's focus. York deserves better than blatant dismissal, but this is just one of a thousand things she buried a long time ago. "I started trying to be someone interesting as a teenager. Kinda liked the statement of the bright red."

York smiles a little at that. "I can't imagine you _not_ being someone interesting."

—

In a cave in front of a carefully crafted fire, Carolina sits down next to York on one of their stolen sleeping rolls and kisses him. They have a plan for early the next morning but hours to wait now and for the first time in so long, she wants to spend her time _with_ him, not just near him. 

"Hm," he says, thoughtful about something even while he raises a hand to cup her cheek, affectionately brushing his thumb under her eye. "Your lips are chapped."

"So are yours, asshole," is all Carolina can think to say, but it seems to be enough because York comes back to her without too much coaxing. She can't remember the last time she just sat and kissed someone for this long, knows it's never been York, knows it's been more years than she can count since kissing was anything but quick foreplay for sex. And sex was mostly just to get it out of her system, to wring it out of her and wear her down for hard sleep and more energy at the next morning's training. 

But she just _kisses_ him here, taking off her gloves to run her hands through his hair - shaggy enough that she should offer to clip it for him the next time they're in a city for a few days - and letting him pull her as close as armour permits, his hands shifting along all the places that aren't plated, touching her all the places she'll actually feel. They kiss so long that when his mouth trails along her jaw and she tips her head away, the fire needs attention. Which means she has to get up, deal with that, turn back to York to find him staring up at her with complete adoration in his eyes, injured and uninjured alike bright in the glow from the fire.

It's the first time she allows the sensation of _missed him_ to settle in her chest, uninvited as always but not shooed away this time because it's too true. 

She doesn't worry about all her armour right away, just the bulky bits. Arms and knees and shins can stay for now, the rest carefully sat aside and ready to be pulled on again at a moment's notice, since the galaxy doesn't stop being aggressive and awful just because she wants to crawl into York's lap and kiss him indefinitely. That's what she does, though, straddling him, knees planted on either side of his hips as she kisses him deeply, pressing herself against the bulk of the chest armour that's kept him alive long enough for her to do this while he maps out her curves through her undersuit. 

"Delta offline?" Carolina asks eventually, hours later by the feel of it, eased back just enough to watch his expression, the way her bulk casts his face into shadow with their one flickering light source. They don't need an audience. 

"He is now." She doesn't realize how her expression has softened until he smiles back, reaching around her to fiddle with something, but it's not until there's tug at the back of her head that she realizes he's undoing her braid. That keeps him focused for a moment, fingers gentle as he teases the strands apart, working his way to her scalp and massaging there a moment before fluffing her hair out so it fans around her, curled at the ends from being braided for so long. "There we go," he says, sounding pleased with himself. "As beautiful as ever."

Want surges through her at his compliment and she rides the urge it leaves in its wake, cupping his face in her hands and kissing him warmly, kissing him until they work together to pull off his armour, and then the rest of hers. Kissing him until he undoes her suit to start peeling it off of her, calloused palms suddenly trailing down her bare back and making her gasp against his mouth. Kissing him until impatience kicks in and she stands to get out of the damn thing and order him to do the same. 

They pause to stack the second sleeping roll on top of the first, although it's not as if either of them are prone to complaining about being uncomfortable. But they can try, pretend to have some reverence for this. Carolina gives York's chest a little push, urging him back down and she follows, moving to straddle his lap again. Before she can settle, he slips his hands under her thighs and she _assumes_ it's just to touch- at least until he lifts and turns her, dropping her gently on the roll and following her body with his own before she can react. Her fingers grip at his shoulder, the only concession she allows herself to the instinct to throw him off of her - especially when he really should know better.

"York-" she starts, half breathless, half ready to lecture him on the dangers of doing anything that might be like starting a fight with her. But she stops when he grins, plucking her hand from his shoulder to pin it beside her head. 

"Don't _tell_ me you're gettin' slow." 

"You're lucky I didn't throw your stupid ass into the fire."

"You wouldn't've," York says, sounding certain as he dips his head to kiss at Carolina's collarbone. Even as she protests, she tips her head back to give him room. 

"I almost did," she tells him, earning a chuckle and suckling against her skin that'll leave a mark later, but make her breath hitch now. "Don't be an idiot."

"By your standards, I'm an idiot most of the time." His lips move against her skin, distracting her from his words. "Not sure I can help it."

Her fingers find his hair as she loses control of her breath again, tugging him away, up. "Then just shut up and come here."

Sex isn't new to them, but it was never frequent and it's been years, so Carolina doesn't mind at all that York takes his time to treat it like a new thing. It may as well be, with the Project behind them, with their friends who knows where, with it just being the two of them in a cave a three hour hike from a military base they're breaking into in the morning. The rules have all changed now. Carolina accepts that. 

But how much she enjoys being with him hasn't, she realizes, and she has to accept that too. 

After, she lays half on him to make up for how little space there is to cuddle on a bedroll, until he starts to doze off and the fire dies down and she forces herself to move. They need to be ready to leave early in the morning, after all. So Carolina talks York back into his undersuit and takes first watch sitting near his head with her gloves off, playing with his hair as he sleeps.

—

"I used to think about asking you to marry me, you know."

They're doing recon, in cover at different vantage points over a base and she only knows where he is from her HUD, not because she can see his armour anywhere. She takes her time responding, because it's not like she knows how to, anyway. What the hell is she supposed to do with a confession like that?

"You don't anymore?"

"No."

"Because your feelings for me have changed?"

"No, I still love you," he says, sounding pensive. "That's not gonna stop."

"Then why?"

"I don't know. It was just wishful thinking, I guess."

—

If there's another way in, none of them have found it. And if the boss with the camouflage can't find it and the infiltrator can't find it and the _goddamn AI fragment_ can't find it, it doesn't exist. Wyoming is dead but they don't have any details and Carolina is fixated on what happened to him and more importantly, what happened to Gamma. They just need to get to a goddamn terminal with enough security to find out. So Delta fudges some paperwork for them, fakes them credentials, makes it _almost_ legitimate when they work themselves into a troop rotation at a UNSC base with intel they want, both of them in fatigues and York running through different stories he's making up to tell when someone asks about his eye. 

"Why can't you just tell the truth?"

"What? That my dumbshit teammates didn't like getting their ass kicked by a new girl instead of our favourite old girl and brought live ammo into a training match?"

_Favourite old girl_ is too endearing, Carolina decides, especially when she's out of her helmet and has to look away and scowl to keep from smiling just a little at the description. "You could just leave it at taking a grenade to the face, you know," she says. 

"And who's going to believe I actually survived that?"

"Anyone who knows you." 

"That's not gonna be anyone here," York says, light but dismissive. He looks a little cranky, actually, until Carolina doesn't entirely smother her half-smile in time and he catches her, his ire melting away. He's a sap sometimes and she hates him for it. 

Three days of blending into base life nearly kills her, she's pretty sure. She survived basic, survived the Project, survived Tex kicking her ass through the window of a crashing ship and Maine throwing her off a goddamn mountain just to die here. If it's not the minutiae of military life that they never observed back on the _Mother of Invention_ , it's the tedium and the ranking officers and the pair of soldiers who catch her beating the shit out a punching bag and trying to goad her into getting in on their CQC pissing contest. They want to see the new girl's attitude taken down a peg. She wants to tell them to fuck off. 

When she does give in, the first three marines that try to fight her aren't worth her time. She's used to the _best_ , in or out of armour. She's used the twins double-teaming her, Connie and Florida's feints, Maine's brute strength, York's resilience. These soldiers are all nothing in comparison. 

At least she breaks a sweat on the fourth one lined up to put her in her place, but that mostly just means her being a little more aggressive in the headlock between her thighs she puts him in until he taps out. When she gets off the mats, swinging her long fishtail braid back behind her from where it had fallen over one shoulder, she catches York grinning from the sidelines. At least one of them is enjoying themselves. 

Two rounds later, he shouts out a cheery, "You might wanna try teaming up." 

So they do, skipping two-on-one to go straight for three and at least Carolina is busy wiping the floor with them when a CO shows up to call it off. He's an asshole, but not half the asshole the Director is, so she takes the _that's not how we do things around here_ with a blank expression and files out beside York when dismissed. 

"I like watching you beat the crap out of people who aren't me," he says, tapping his hand on her arm long enough to indicate heading to the mess. "It's hot."

"I can still make time for you, you know."

He laughs and she still hates being here and she still can't freaking wait for their intel snatching opportunity, but he makes it bearable. It's not exactly home, not the _MoI_ , but dinner off to the side, just the two of them, is alright. 

At least until she hears a, " _Damn_ , Church, it is you." 

But no, it can't be for her. The UNSC is massive, there can't be anyone who knew her before the Project in this one base she needs to be at in order to follow a path to the Director. Except here's one of her roommates from basic training, all full of wide grins as ever, setting her tray down next to Carolina's and sitting, uninvited. Across the table, York's hands still, his eyebrows arched as he watches. 

"Costa, hi," Carolina says, and it's a damn good thing she's always been a little awkward socially. It probably helps keep that feeling of dread in her stomach off her face, at least. "I didn't know you were stationed here."

"Yeah, I've been here for _months_ ," Costa replies, rolling her eyes. "Didn't know you were here until I saw that last fight, though. Different name, different hair, it's like you're trying to be a different person."

_Because I am_ , Carolina doesn't say, waves her hand vaguely instead. "Got married, stopped dyeing my hair, you know how it is." 

"I guess someone had to pin you eventually."

"Don't worry, I made him work for it."

She doesn't look at York, but he cuts in anyway: "You two know each other?"

"Juliana Costa," the marine offers, offering her hand across the table for York to shake. "We go way back to basic, when Church here- uh, _Mrs. Foster_ , sorry - first started showing off all the time."

"Glad to know she always did that," York comments dryly, at the same time Carolina says, "I don't show off." 

"She still argue about everything and refuse to admit she might be wrong?" Costa asks. 

"Yep." 

Costa grins at York and he smiles right back, as if they're both pleased to find a friend to talk about Carolina with, but then Costa's attention is back on Carolina and- yeah, _fuck_ , this is the worst thing she's ever planned and York should have worked harder to veto it when Carolina started siding with Delta. Her past shouldn't be sneaking up on her like this. 

"You know, there was this rumour for years that you'd gotten recruited to that sketchy Project Freelancer and whatever the hell they were up to, but I guess if you were, you'd be getting court martialed about now."

"Probably," Carolina says, shaking her head a little and wondering how distinctive the scarring around her neural port is, if her braid covers it well enough. "But no, I've been out in the Aurigae system, mostly."

"Yeah? I think Nazar spent some time out there."

"Really? Never ran into her."

Because she's never been out there. Because she has no idea how convincing her lies are coming across right now, just that Costa is from a time in her life she'd put firmly behind her and York is watching her with interest. Dinner takes forever and Costa just wants to catch up, so talking her way out of it takes time. York, for whatever it's worth, doesn't say anything until they've got a wide clear radius around them on the way to the barracks. 

"Church?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Carolina tells him. "Get Delta working on how we can get to that terminal tonight. I'm not putting it off any longer."

—

A few days later, they have their intel and a facility they want to get to and it's just a matter of arranging the sort of transport off-world that won't ask uncomfortable questions. Carolina has a bottle of vivid red hair dye and York has infinitely more patience than she ever did making sure he doesn't get any on her face or neck as he works it through her hair. 

"Thanks for not making a scene about the Church thing, by the way."

It's not like they'd been talking about anything else, after all. The silence between them isn't always comfortable, but York seems to know when he shouldn't break it. He hadn't been like that before, but she appreciates that he's more cautious of it now, that he gives her more time to just be in her head, whether that's actually good for her or not.

"You didn't seem like you needed the extra grief." He pauses, catching her gaze in the mirror. "Would it be wrong to guess you're related to the Director?"

"He's my father," Carolina says, but she can't keep her eyes - too like his, too vibrant and _keen_ , she was always told - on either of their reflections. 

"Well, fuck."

"Yep."

"Did anyone in the Project know?"

"Just Price." She gives a tiny shake of her head. "He fought the Director on recruiting me, when they were finding their first candidates, said it would look like bias. But I was good enough to meet their standards and my father knew I wouldn't say no to whatever it was he was going to ask of his Freelancers."

"So you got kept," York finishes. "And the codenames did you a favour, keeping real names out of it."

"I don't know if they'd started it, when they brought me in. That might be all my fault," she adds, forcing a wry smile. 

"Hey, I've been called worse things." A beat. " _You've_ called me worse things."

She lets a puff of air out through her nose, almost a laugh but her chest too tight to let the whole thing out. "Only when you deserved it."

—

Carolina's watching the exits and biting back the urge to tell York and Delta to _hurry the hell up, already_ , when there's a sudden, prolonged silence behind her. Anyone else shutting up to focus on retrieving information is a good thing. _These two_ shutting up is cause for concern. She sweeps the area again, looks behind her, grits her teeth and asks, "What is it?"

"Nothing, nothing, just some recent updates to PFL agent files the UNSC's keeping."

"And?"

Silence. _Not good._

" _And_ , York?"

York still doesn't answer, but Delta does. "The confidential files for Agents Maine, Texas, and Washington have been updated to note them as confirmed dead."

"Does it say what killed them?"

"They were involved in an altercation with some of the Project's Blue and Red simulation troopers."

York's been reading along and- "These guys keep killing Freelancers."

That's interesting, a curiosity worth looking into if she's going to find her path to the Director. She'll care about how her former teammates got killed later, if she bothers to let herself think of them at all. If her and York are the only survivors, then that's all that matters, isn't it? They can bury everyone's memory at once when this is over.

"Delta, grab every file related to those troopers that you can," Carolina says, knowing full well that'll put them here longer. But it'll be worth it. "Including their current deployments. I need to find them."

The additional information that needs to be downloaded adds another minute and a half to how long they have to wait for Delta to do his thing, which is plenty of time for a patrol to come investigating their dead comrades and give Carolina something to do, taking them out- but not in time to stop them from raising the alarm. This makes their exit exciting, with Delta decrypting information as they go and York complaining about the pitch of the facility's security alarm and how it's giving him a headache. 

They stop to regroup a few miles away, in the guardhouse of an abandoned power plant. York takes his helmet off and sits. Carolina paces. Delta says, "Agent Carolina, you may not like this information."

Considering the Director's stance on bad news versus ignorance, it's a wonder Delta thinks to say that. York's influence, Carolina knows. Sometimes it shows just how long they've been sharing a head. 

"I need to hear it anyway." 

"One of the soldiers involved with the Freelancer deaths is listed under the name of Leonard Church." Delta pauses long enough for Carolina to interject, but she can't think of anything to say. "His personnel file appears to be a randomly generated entry under Counselor Price's formatting, with nothing remarkable until his assignment to an outpost in Blood Gulch under the command of Captain Butch Flowers. That was a few months after the… _incident_ on the _Mother of Invention._ " 

After Tex and Carolina crashed it, she knows he means. More importantly, none of that information seems to be a coincidence. She's just about to say as much when York cuts her off. 

"Wait. Flowers? _Florida_?" he asks, sounding shocked, and Carolina's glad he talked over her. She wouldn't have caught that alone, never paid attention to what any of the Freelancers had for names before the Project. She didn't want to share hers and didn't care about theirs. She usually forgets York has a name that isn't a state that she could use, even, and she's all but in love with him. "He could be fucking cold sometimes but he'd need a damn good reason to get involved killing teammates."

"Captain Flow- Agent Florida," Delta corrects. "- Died not long after assignment to Blood Gulch."

"Cause of death?" Carolina asks. 

"It is recorded as an aspirin overdose."

York snorts. Not a sensitive response, but a pretty Freelancer-y one. "You're kiddin' me. Didn't he have an allergy?"

"Yes. It appears unlikely that it was accidental." 

"Oh. Shit." 

That sounds like a more appropriate response, but Carolina doesn't dwell. "Delta, this Church. Do you think he's the Alpha AI you were fragmented from?"

"That seems highly likely."

"Then we know where we're going."

York cocks his head her way, frowns. "What are you thinking?"

"Who better to help us track the Director than a copy of how he thinks?"

"What if he doesn't know? I mean, he doesn't have the Director's memories. Wasn't that why Epsilon tried to do Wash in? Because he was _all_ memories?"

Carolina shakes her head. "Even if he doesn't have the Director's memories, we still get a full AI out of it. Between him and Delta, they'll be a bigger help than Delta is on his own."

Not that Delta isn't useful - they wouldn't have made it this far without his help - but the Alpha AI would be something else entirely to get her hands on and now that the thought's in her head, she's not letting it go. Even if he wasn't a useful step on her long climb to kill the Director, she _knows_ what a full, functional AI can do. She'd be lying if she said she didn't want one. 

"And what if he doesn't want to help?" York asks, pulling her back from her thoughts.

"I don't intend to ask, York," she says flatly. "He's going to help us. Delta, where is he now?"

For the first time since Tex beating her to the briefcase on the freeway, Carolina feels like her goals are within reach and she's not letting them go again. The thought makes her look forward to the future for the first time in memory.

—

York's by the window of their hotel room in a questionable corner of town, waiting for a ship out the next day, on their way to Blood Gulch. It's the first night in a long time Carolina's meant to be falling asleep in underwear and a t-shirt in place of her armour and instead of making sleep come easier, she just feels naked and vulnerable. And for this moment, just right now, she accepts that. 

"I want to marry you," she says after oh so long of quietly watching York's silhouette. He startles as if he didn't realize she wasn't asleep yet. Maybe he didn't. 

"... You do?"

"Mm, I do. When this is all over."

"You mean when the Director's dead."

"Yeah, when the Director's dead." He just looks at her for a moment and suddenly being vulnerable doesn't feel so good. Shutting herself up, she guesses, "But you don't have any interest in marrying me now."

"Don't you start that," York tells her, suddenly not at his chair by the window but on the edge of the bed instead. So busy trying to lock herself back up, she hadn't noticed him move. He leans down, one hand on her thigh, the other in her hair, and kisses her breathless. 

Carolina melts into the bed and when he lets her breathe she curls both hands into his hair to keep him close, keep their lips almost touching. It confirms that she wants this, _oh god_ , does she want this. She wants York in her bed every night and a life where neither one of them feel the need to argue over first watch. She wants to share everything about herself with him and she wants his last name for the next time she needs to use one. She wants some home to call theirs and- hell, she doesn't know what other domestic goals to strive for. A blender. A dog. That sounds perfect. 

"I love you," she whispers for the first time. He's always said it as if it was nothing, just a passing comment, even if it always had an effect on her. But when _she_ says it, it's a heavy, promising thing, tethering herself to him with a limited oxygen supply and trusting it'll all work out in the end.

_You can trust me._

Yes, she can.

**Author's Note:**

> i kinda want to apologize for any liberties taken with canon details, but mostly i just really hope everyone is proud of me for not making a single "she wants the D" reference in those first two scenes. the temptation was very real.


End file.
